Guest Artist Series

In this series, we collaborate with gifted artists from our community. Each artist brings their unique style to create stunning pieces inspired by our world of coffee. Every now and then, you'll see a classic Colectivo coffee icon reimagined through fresh artistic lenses. And in between those reimaginations are some hand-crafted mugs, because coffee will always need a friend to keep it warm.

Reinterpreting Co-Optiva

Fred Stonehouse

A Wisconsin-based artist; Fred has always been enamored with the way we experience and convey memories. His work often explores the gap between one's personal recollections and the way they are communicated. Such as the idea of history and how it is understood through memory.

How much is lost in translation? How much of it is a new interpretation?

In Fred's artwork, his characters are always trying to communicate in a variety of ways. They weep, sweat, bleed, and speak, but their efforts always fall short of true understanding. It is this struggle for communication that Fred believes mirrors the human experience: the desire to express oneself while wrestling with the limitations of language and memory.

Fred Stonehouse
Pride—Dismantled into abstraction

Nykoli Koslow

Nykoli's work transforms the trans experience through world-building. Spinning his own myths and reenvisioning a new world with different norms.

For his addition to the Guest Artist Series, Nykoli merged an alien-esque world, where queerness is the norm, with the world that we live in day to day.

Nykoli Koslow
Blue Heeler in new light

Basak Notz

Basak Notz is a Turkish visual storyteller in Chicago. 

She is a published illustrator who enjoys slowing down to seek the beauty around her, and draws from her bi-continental observations to reflect on what she sees.

Basak Notz
The Community Collab

Love Supreme

We’ve collaborated with three artists associated with The Community. Each artist created their own illustration of what comes to mind when they hear the words Love Supreme.

My name is Charles Gray and this piece is called “Just the Two of Us.” I am inspired by everyday life and I look forward to sharing how I see the world.

Sarah Demerath began creating art as a tool to survive and discovered it was an incredible way to express compartmentalized emotions.

DarRen paints from his memories, his spirituality and his life in prison. The piece is titled "Sharing Creates Community.”

Love Supreme
Espresso Toro Reimagined

Ewrks

A painter and illustrator from the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago who took our classic Toro bag to make it his own.

He has been part of the activist and artistic community for years, using his art and voice as a means to challenge and question the world around him.

Ewrks
Where Imagination Takes Shape

Little Fire Ceramics

Milwaukee-based Little Fire Ceramics strives to encourage joy and connection in everyday experiences by creating unique handmade ceramics which marry form and function.

We were ecstatic to have the opportunity to collaborate with Jessica Egan on these beautifully handcrafted mugs for our Artist Series. Each mug showcases the remarkable talent and artistic ability thriving in our neighborhoods.

Every piece is thoughtfully designed, prototyped, and handmade by the artist.

Learn more at littlefireceramics.com.

Little Fire Ceramics
Local Ceramics

Misewell

Misewell has a passion for designing well-made objects that are not only beautiful and functional, but ethically and sustainably produced. Established by brothers Vincent & Paul Georgeson, everything is hand-crafted locally in Milwaukee.

Visit Misewell.com for more timeless goods, handmade in the USA.

Misewell